Iraq's Shiites contemplate a power vacuum

Pilgrim . . . a Shiite woman prays at the doors of the shrine of Imam Ali in Najaf. Photo: Reuters/Adrees Latif

The religious majority are divided on what they want, but agreed on what they are against, writes Herald Correspondent Ed O'Loughlin.

Fellah al-Hassan had a story he wanted to tell. Standing on a street corner in Najaf, central Iraq, he pointed down a narrow, teeming street towards a high golden dome flanked by two golden minarets.

"When the Americans captured Najaf they wanted to go in their tanks to the shrine of Imam Ali," he said.

"We came here and we lay on the street to block their tanks, about 30 of us, and finally they retreated. Until now the Americans have not gone to the shrine. The whole world saw that they cannot touch the imam."

A teacher of electrical engineering, Fellah al-Hassan is a voluntary attendant at Najaf's Shrine of Imam Ali, revered by Shiites as the founder of their branch of the Muslim faith.

This week hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shiites flocked to Najaf to mark Thursday's anniversary of the 40th day after the death of the prophet Muhammad, Ali's cousin and father-in-law. Forbidden to non-Muslims, the breathtaking inner sanctum of Ali's tomb is lined with a mosaic of painted tiles and mirrors, gleaming in the light. The tomb itself is clad in panels of heavy gold and delicate silver filigree, spelling out prayers from the Koran.");document.write("

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At the festival's peak on Thursday large groups of men and youths squeezed their way through the throng to pass three times around the inner sanctum, dancing, singing and beating their chests in violent ecstasy.

Women were there too, but silent and shy, shrouded in the shapeless black gowns compulsory for Shiite females here, as in neighbouring Iran.

Once inside the shrine, though, many of the women dissolved into tears, hurling themselves at the tomb to kiss it, throwing green cloths up onto the bier in token of their most desperate wishes.

Many of the pilgrims had walked 80 kilometres from Karbala. Some marched 170 kilometres from Baghdad, waving green banners in token of Ali's son Hussein, whose death in the one-sided battle of Karbala in AD680 was commemorated by a similar mass pilgrimage last week.

All along the route local people manned hundreds of mudhifs, or roadside rest stations, where passers by - even infidel journalists - were provided free with the best food their villages could offer.

Ali Hussein Ali was one of the satisfied guests at the mudhif of Sherif Ghanam Khalil, from the village of Khafaja.

"We used to do the pilgrimages every year but it was stopped from 1968, step by step, by Saddam Hussein, and for a long time we used to make the pilgrimage in secret," he said. "We had to walk through the fields. Now that we can do it openly again we are very pleased."

Saddam severely restricted the annual Shiite festivals at Karbala and Najaf because he feared that mass outpourings of religious fervour could turn into mass demonstrations of dissent.

Stunned by the sight of hundreds of thousands of people swarming into Karbala and Najaf in recent days, officials in Washington are already briefing journalists that the administration badly underestimated the risk that a Shiite revival could pose for US plans for Iraq.

About 60 per cent of Iraq's estimated 24 million people are Shiite Arabs, but under Saddam's minority Sunni regime they were violently suppressed - at least 250,000 are still "missing" after an abortive rising in 1991, spurred on and then abandoned by the US.

Now, after centuries of Turkish, British and Sunni overlordship, Iraq's Shiites are suddenly free to contemplate the power vacuum left by Saddam's departure.

For the occupying US forces, the new fear is that they will try to follow the example of their bitterly anti-US fellow Shiites in neighbouring Iran. This week the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, reacted sharply to questions on this possibility.

"If you're suggesting, how would we feel about an Iranian-type government with a few clerics running everything in the country, the answer is: that isn't going to happen," he said.

Iraq's Shiites may have different ideas about this - if they can make up their minds at all.

Although senior Islamic clergy are at the heart of the present unrest, it is not certain that all or even most of the Shiite hierarchy want to impose an Iranian-style ultra-conservative Islamic state on Iraq's mixed population.

There are signs of debate among the followers of Iraq's Shiite hierarchy, represented by al-Hawsa al-Almia, the fraternity of Shiite Islamic scholars and clergy.

Excluded by the US from conferences to create an interim government, al-Hawsa - or at least its name - has brought tens of thousands onto the streets of Baghdad, Najaf and Karbala.

What they all want, however, is unclear. This week Said Mohammed Hussein al-Hakiem, son of and spokesman for one of al-Hawsa's four leaders, Mohammed Said al-Hakiem, said al-Hawsa was not interested in attending US-brokered meetings.

"These conferences are being held for people who want power, and we are not looking for power," he said. "We want to lead the people by religious example."

In Baghdad, meanwhile, another man describing himself as an al-Hawsa spokesman, Jaleel Chammari, said that al-Hawsa's representatives would be prepared to talk with the US authorities.

Both Dr Chammari and Said Mohammed Hussein al-Hakiem said that al-Hawsa wanted not an Islamic state but a "government of all Iraqis", including non-Arab Kurds and Christians.

On the other hand, elements of the Iranian-backed Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq have returned from exile to campaign for a Tehran-style Shiite theocracy, complete with compulsory veiling of women, regardless of creed. But the group's leader, Ayatollah Mohamad Baqir al-Hakim, has said he wants no such thing.

If the Shiites are unsure what they are in favour of, few have any doubt about what they are against.

"We want to thank the Americans and we want them to leave," shouted Shukri Ashemeni, one of an excited crowd gathered outside Baghdad's Shrine of el-Khadhim, named after Hussein's grandson.

"Believe me that if they stay one month or two months all the world will see how the Iraqi people can really fight."